Altadena resident finds photos in ruins of Eaton Fire, returns them to owners

ALTADENA, Calif. (KABC) -- Among the numerous belongings lost in the Eaton Fire were countless photos of the displaced residents and their loved ones. But some of those precious memories survived the fire.

Claire Schwartz has been able to find photos in the ruins of her Altadena community. She's collected dozens and is working to return them to their rightful owners.

In some cases, the photos are all that's left of a home that was destroyed.

Schwartz recounted returning photos to one woman.

"I kept seeing these two older folks in all the photos ... I came to find that those were her parents, and they've since passed on," Schwartz said. "That's a little bit of her history... Obviously, she has her memories but the only kind of physical preservation of them in her life is through objects and photos."

Schwartz said a few weeks ago she noticed social media posts that mentioned photos that were found. She decided to develop her own website to help as many people as she could.

Some of the photos are decades old, preserving generations of family and Altadena history.

"It's been a good feeling knowing that what we're doing here has allowed somebody to take a little bit of their old life with them into their next chapter - it's not all forgotten, it's not all lost," Schwartz said.

There's no charge for the pictures being sent back to the owner. Schwartz says her reward is getting to return the photos.